From Bot Lane to Jungle: In search of basic jungling concepts.

It's a buff thats spots (discovers) enemy wards

The thing is it is hard to do anything from the jungöle right now, No matter what you are gonna lack Either Gold or XP or Both.

The best way right now to play it is take support Tanks in the Jungle. Alistar, Blitzcrank, Taric, maybe Leona and Thresh.

Jungle can have a lot of influence on other lanes, and that is really the only worthwhile aspect of jungle at the moment. Which unfortunately means that without a duo partner you trust to be able to carry with a lead, jungling is as hit-and-miss as any role.

The two hardest carrying roles in the game are Mid and ADC. Top can rival them, but requires a bit more luck (it is very jungler dependent, unless you are confident in your ability to avoid 2v1s and your ability to otherwise consistently outplay your lane opponent. Mid and ADC have the near-guarantee of assistance.)

If you're not looking to climb this very instant, jungle is worth learning, because your map awareness will almost inevitably increase by playing it, more so than in other roles. Even more than playing support, it teaches you the value of vision control.

That being said, though, I strongly believe anyone can grow as a player in any role. You can develop better map awareness playing ADC, you'll just have to put more effort into paying attention to your top lane, for example.

If you're set on playing jungle though:

0. Talk to your team constructively. Always. As much as possible. (For me, the player I talk to the most is my top laner. Even though I typically see him the least in my playstyle, because our build paths are the most similar, I want to make sure that between the two of us, we have enough tank stats and damage stats to accentuate the rest of the team's abilities.) The more you communicate, the more your team trusts you, the more likely your engages are to succeed.

1. there is no straightforward, typical path anymore. Tanky junglers () like to start Gromp and smite it, go blue, wolves, and then back (or go red if you're feeling confident, I guess.) Autoattackers (, , , ) like to start Krugs, then go red, either raptors or wolves, and blue. (Each champion is different, of course. is special, for example, because his W allows him awesome sustain, so you might be able to do a full 5- or 6-camp clear with him.) But the reason you commonly start Gromp or Krugs is because your laners can help you damage them.

2. Never smite blue buff.

3. Always get a leash. If you can't get a leash, you're going to suffer and your lanes are going to suffer.

4. Smiting red gives health back, so use that if you want to continue clearing or need some HP for a gank.

5. Take if either your clear or your sustain is lacking. Take if you don't have enough CC to walk into lane and secure a kill/flash. Take probably never. is a joke.

6. Go back to a lane that has flashed, soon.

7. ABC: Always Be Clearing. If you're not at an adequate level to be dancing with enemy laners (more than 1 level under them), then don't dance.

8. Don't worry about Dragon. It's there, you'll get it if you're ahead, but it hurts early, it requires a lot of resources, and you really have no business doing it if you didn't just ace the enemy, or if you can acquire a tower instead (way more map pressure).

9. Don't waste your time on supermobile enemy laners if you can help it. If you must, don't enter lane until they've burned their gapcloser.

10. Raptors are your most valuable smite after level 3. Having a free Oracle's is, simply put, amazing. Even if you build , it is sometimes worth burning a charge of smite on raptors rather than a champion. Wolf is a fine smite if you're losing on your side, or if you're putting presure on their jungle. Gromp is an okay smite if you're a tank and really never otherwise.

11. AD bruisers provide the stronest ganks (they are typically very mobile and bring a lot of damage early game), which is why they are the most common (read: only) picks in the LCS. You are not a pro. Your games are not going to be decided by your laner getting fed always. Your team will not always know how to work with a great lead. You yourself may not know how to work with a great lead. And even if you do, AD bruisers fall off harder late game, unless their burst remains consistent enough to kill the ADC/midlaner and they have the tools to get in range every time.

12. Tanks () are typically worse early. Their ganks aren't as effective, and their clears are consistently worse throughout the game (which, given the current jungle, makes life brutal). But, having a strong tank late game is, in my opinion, considerably more valuable than having an AD bruiser. It facilitates tower dives tremendously, it gives your team someone to stand behind, it takes pressure off of your support and top lanes to build tanky. Try to coordinate with teammates so you don't end up with a team like , but having a solid tank or two is amazing.

13. is special. Whereas most if not all other pure mages are completely unviable junglers due to mana gating ( does fuckall for mana regen), Fiddle's W is absurd. It does stupid single target damage, restores his health constantly, and is on a low cooldown. There is no better AP jungler than Fiddle, other than potentially , who builds tank, , who now builds AD bruiser/ AP off-tank for reasons, and , who is unnaturally strong due to an overloaded kit. There are others, but they're janky at best. ( [as an AD], [has mana problems], [not sure if she survives anymore], ).

14. Don't feel pressured into letting your midlane take blue or your carries take giant waves of farm. Sometimes you don't trust your midlaner to use blue effectively. Sometimes you're just the closest champion in the area for a big wave of farm. Be courteous, but you can carry, and everyone needs gold and exp.

15. If a gank works out, and you're over level 6, stick around and take turret when possible. Map pressure is huge; the fewer friendly structures an enemy has, the fewer options they have.

So that was probably way more than you were looking for, but hopefully it gives you a fairly basic to intermediate intro to the jungle. If you're set on trying it out, good luck. If you'd like any specifics on a certain champion, let me know.

Final advice: any role can carry. Play the one you're comfortable in. Play the champions you're comfortable on. The more comfortable you are, the more your mind can focus on other elements of the game, the more likely you are to succeed. There is a reason the pros advise mastering one champ and taking them all the way to diamond: because that's the easiest way to do it.

[{quoted}](name=Eitan Leigh,realm=NA,application-id=WEuoGbmp,discussion-id=1i3QQFeB,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2015-02-19T17:01:20.704+0000)

Thank you so very much for this break down! My post was written specifically with Warwick in mind since he's the one I've been learning with. I do have Yi and I'm a pretty (dangerously) aggressive ADC so I may go back to him. I keep getting discouraged from it though because I have a hard time as Melee (WW's different somehow - I think it's the supress that lets me work with him).

Would you recommend always buying Sightstone as Jungle, especially since in B5 very few people actually ward anyway?

and Do you have a resource you could point me to that would help with the smite items? I know nothing about them and only get (what I call) the purple one because Attack Speed is supposed to be the biggest thing for WW.

I definitely would not recommend buying sightstone on any jungler that's not Lee Sin for the most part...it's 800 gold that should be going to other items. Buy your occasional green and pink wards...but also buy the 250 gold upgrade to your yellow trinket. That upgrade basically works like a sightstone allowing you to place I believe 3 wards....that combined with the mini-oracles you get for smiting Raptors means you aren't dependent on buying a red trinket like junglers used to.

As for the sightstone, I would argue that it is a solid item buy, but beware of buying it. If you can't use the hp as much as... say, damage, don't buy it. However, if you need wards because you're dealing what shaco stealing your camps, it will probably be worth it; it will more than pay for itself as long as you use the wards well. Otherwise, buy normal wards; they're worth the gold. It may be worth getting to get used to warding your jungle.

As far as smite items go, a lot of people have pointed you to the base items, but it is also very important to choose a good enchantment for it. Essentially, on your first back you should be buying your smite item. You're probably going to either get chilling smite or blasting smite, depending on how good your clear is, because the other two are kinda underpowered. But the enchantments are Juggernaut, mainly used for tanks because it gives a bunch of health, primarily, Warrior mainly gives attack damage and armor pen, magus gives ap and more cdr than the others, and devourer is essentially the snowball item for auto-attack junglers, but no one uses it. It's a little unpredictable, and the others are safer. It increases attack speed, and deals magic damage on hit that increases with kills and (i think) assists.

These enchantments can keep the smite item relevant later in the game. If you're playing a tank jungle, it can get the the hp you need for armor to actually matter, for instance.

Also, don't be afraid to go melee; Yi's alpha strike puts you right in the enemy's face most of the time, he's pretty moble, and his ult is an amazing gap closer. Just be wary that it only makes him immune to slow, but he still can be stunned, snared, knocked up, etc. There's a reason that people hate Yi in soloqueue. It's also not so bad as many other junglers like Amumu have gap closers (e.g. his Bandage Toss), and there's also Chilling Smite which does some small true damage and is a pretty hefty slow.

Also, speaking of shaco, he might be your thing if Yi doesn't seem to be your jungler of choice. Shaco is very much a counter-jungle that has a high learning curve and high reward. He has some ranged going on, and is known to be very scary in most soloqueue games.

Yeah I also always ward dragon and buff and inbetween, just alone to cover my own butt.

red trinket is more valuable for a jungler (don't destroy the ward, just walk through!) and Wolf only covers half the jungle.

You may also ask you team to get some pinks in the right locations but they don't always do that.